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I am hoping that this blog will help you and me experience the craft of crochet as well as knitting. During times of silence or turmoil, crochet and knitting continuously help me quiet my mind at my own pace, enabling me to find my center. I have patterns for sale in PDF Format, you can find them at their own Pages at the top menu. The posts are classified By labels which are at the far right, all the way down. We are the Borg! I think it will bring Order into Chaos!

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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Holiday Gift Ideas, and some cooking

As Knitting and Crochet have changed my life I evolve and learn to create and let my spirit come through my creations.. At this moment I am experiencing a Knitting Renaissance of a kind. Now getting away from me and to what you came here for, besides me .

Well KnitScene magazine for the Fall 2007 has great projects. The sweaters for the fall are fabulous and sneaked in it's pages , specifically on pages 41 , 50 and 83 is my friend in fiber art mischief, Regina Rioux Gonzalez aka LadyLinoleoum from Montercrochet.blogspot.comand or Monstercrochet.com, she has a flaming Tote. Regina has such a creative mind, she is so inspiring and it comes to show that Uniqueness is in Vogue. Dare to be different is what I say and Regina is definitely different and different Excellence.

If you were looking for ideas for gifts for yourself, your friends or a knitter, Interweave Holiday Gifts Issue for Holiday 2006 was a great buy for me. I found great ideas for my Santa's List, but whatever holiday you celebrate that includes gifts, count me in. lol!

I am a baker, something in my genetic making calls me to bake, I love brick ovens and I am fascinated by the baking process. You can say it is a chemical reaction that produces more often than not, great outcomes of culinary sense. These are sticky buns modified for a low carb diet you can find the recipe in this link Angy's Sticky Bunsand I say substitute olive oil for half of the butter it calls for . It will be better for cholesterol. I substituted Oat bran for bran and it gave it a very cool texture. It was actually half steel cut oatmeal and oat bran. Sugar free maple syrup. Remember these are high caloric items and can not and should no be eaten like they are going out of style, ha ha ha!

As you can see I used this mold, which is for baked donuts. I chopped up the almonds. It is a great breakfast treat. Following below for presentation purposes is the plate with five of the six donuts or sticky buns, well I have to try one before serving them to people. lol!

I still have some Works in Progress, I am almost done with my Irish Hiking Cap, I had to recast the stitches for a cap my size. I am a self taught knitter and I am sure all of us self taught knitters have gone through the same roads. As I make stuff I realize the way I knit and how I can effectively have an easier time knitting. I am aware of the tension I use and the tension I need to learn to use. This is called gauge, gauge is the amount of stitches you make with a certain number needle or hook (crochet) for a finite amount of inches and rows. My tension for this hat on Lion Brand cotton and on circular needles US 6 get me to cast at least 132 stitches to have a comfortable hat on my head. Maybe if I relax my stitches I will be able to get away with 90 or so stitches, but that will be for my next hat in deep blue. It will match my raincoat, the raincoat that Santa gave me last year! Well enough for now, thanks for stopping by.

1 comment:

Funny that we both just blogged about Regina's pattern in Knitscene's Fall issue! Additionally, I was just able to get my hands on a copy of IK's Holiday Gifts as well. Only briefly did I have a chance to flip through it but from what I saw I did like. Seemed like a good buy to me as well - hooray!

You know, I recently had a chat with a Scottish woman, she told me that if I could knit, purl, increase and decrease than the rest would flow along in time. That I should take my time and enjoy knitting as I go along and not pressure myself. It was the best advice I'd received in regard to the craft, I do believe, ever. So...passing it along...